What Can You Do Without?

[brewgod]

Hello Fans

I would like to know which buildings you feel does not ever need to be built. For me what sticks out the most is Stables.

That said...I feel that most all buildings you can build is necessary?? You need a granary, library, watermill, harbor, museum, etc. etc. etc. Regardless of which Civ you choose to play and how you want to win...your cities all benefit from most all if not all buildings you choose to have. Regardless of upkeep cost. Yet again things like Stables...I am never building because by mid to late game horses are not a powerful unit when compared to infantry or tanks etc. Perhaps this is a bad example but it's a building which I do with out.

I am sure most of you out there have at least one building or Wonder where you go...why in the world would you waste your time for that when I need to bump something else up like a library for more science output.

Any thoughts would be great.

Brew God

 

[TheDuckOfFlanders]

I would like to know which buildings you feel does not ever need to be built. For me what sticks out the most is Stables.

When i used to play at lower levels i gave few attention to the stables. But you know, it gives +1 hammer for each cow, sheep, and/or horse in the city range, tiles you can easily work because they give you good food. So in a city with 4 of those tiles it will give +4 added production just to give an example, and that can be hughe early in the development of any city. Sometimes you can settle city's that have like 6 or 8 of those resources and then the stables akes to give the effect of a good wonder for a cheap price.

So stables are deffinatly not useless, you need to reconsider that. At higher difficulties it's best to get a lot of production early. You'd focus on settling in land that can give you plenty of hammers early, like settling city's so they can for ex use a lot of stone with a stone works, settling near a lot of sea resources and building a lighthouse, or work a lot of pasture's with a stables soon, which is doable because the required techs come early, these things can significantly jumpstart the construction of other buildings in city's, and don't cost a lot of money to maintain.

Typicly the stuff i'd build less are:
- late stuff when one has a significant tech advantage or close to science win, like hospitals for ex. as i'd likely have the pop and science by then anyhow.
- Security stuff, spying never tends to become an issue so big that it motivates me to pay attention to it.

 

[phillipwyllie]

...I would like to know which buildings you feel does not ever need to be built. For me what sticks out the most is Stables...

If you have lots of cattle/sheep/horses around you'll want a stable.

For me it's constabulary/police station then caravansaries.

 

[Sessy]

did I just see museum in OP? granary workshop library university yes, but a museum isn't even high on my list when i'm going for CV

if not going for CV i don't even think opera houses are important. otherwise i'd only build the extra stables/stoneworks if i have more than 2 of those bonus resources. sea ports, police stations are usually left out, along with modern era stuff like stadiums.

 

[joncnunn]

Unless you have no coastal cities at all, you can always skip the Caravansary, because you want all your external routes to be sea cargo ones (even if the destination is on the same landmass)

Cities that will never see an enemy unit within 2 hexes never need defense structures.

After you've built HE, you don't need Barracks in cities that you'll never build units from.

The Medical Center usually arrives too late to do much good.

 

[reddishrecue]

Unless you have no coastal cities at all, you can always skip the Caravansary, because you want all your external routes to be sea cargo ones (even if the destination is on the same landmass)

Cities that will never see an enemy unit within 2 hexes never need defense structures.

After you've built HE, you don't need Barracks in cities that you'll never build units from.

The Medical Center usually arrives too late to do much good.

The medical center is actually good because it gives you a lot of population growth that speeds up the science victory a lot. Once you have a large population, your libraries will make you a lot more science than with a small population. Going for the medical lab at the end is worth it since you make a lot more science with MCs.

 

[SamarKhannor]

As mentioned, I usually can do without constabularies, police stations, and caravansaries in most cities. For whatever reason, I never seem to get attacked, and usually don't build walls until everything else is already built; same goes for barracks.
Past my first 4-6 cities, I also tend not to build the faith buildings until I've run out of good buildings, as at that point I'm producing enough by other means.
Later on, of course spaceship factories are useless in all but a couple cities, and I've never needed a bomb shelter.
Usually I also find I put off the happiness buildings to the very end, unless I encounter some sort of public opinion crisis.

However, i usually end up building all of these when I run out of things to build, juts because I like seeing the "buildings" slot empty. I should probably end this practice.

Also, since some previous posters mentioned avoiding museums and hospitals (which I consider to be very useful,) what are you doing instead? Building units, putting cities on wealth/research, or are you just really far behind in what you need to build?

 

[TheDuckOfFlanders]

Also, since some previous posters mentioned avoiding museums and hospitals (which I consider to be very useful,) what are you doing instead? Building units, putting cities on wealth/research, or are you just really far behind in what you need to build?

One would skip it more or less if one is ahead in tech more than enough and say a science win is to be expected in about 20 turns. At that point you rather may want to make prepperations for building parts for it so it gets up asap, which usually winds down to either building financial buildings or going wealth sometimes.

 

[the northman]

Wind Mills (the econ building). I don't think I have ever built one. Too late to be effective.

 

[TheDuckOfFlanders]

Wind Mills (the econ building). I don't think I have ever built one. Too late to be effective.

It's kind of an odd argument since the windmill comes before the factory and is relativly comparable to it, although i often came to the point of neglecting it too, i don't think i really should if i oversee the details of it:

Windmill
-Unlocked by economics, which is just a bit earlier than industrialization
- +10% production towards buildings, since most city's tend to be 95% of the time on buildings, the distinction that it only works for buildings is not much of an issue.
- +2 hammers
- +1 engineer slot
- costs 240 hammers

Factory
- Unlocked by industrialization
- Needs coal
- +10% production, the same as the windmill really
- +4 hammers
- +2 engineer slots
- cost 350 hammers
- +1 happyness or +25 science with certain ideological tennets

Because of the same flat +10% production, the windmill and the factory are really not so much different. Than it doesn't help for units for the windmill is hardly much of a concern. a 10% modifier at this point is usually not to bad, as by then much of my city's would range somewhere between 50 and 100 hammers, it would easily mean somewhere between +5 or +10 hammers for any of those. Eitherway a flat +10% production tends to be roughly worth it at this point, but it's a bit of a toss where it would fit in the order, As quite possibly you'd be wondering if you needed to prioritise first on say a public school or a windmill in a city at this point, i might choose public school. it kinda depends though.

The +2 hammers make it a bit more interresting especially for city's that arn't to high on production anyway, the extra engineer slot can be converted to another +2 hammers right away for city's with few productional tiles. It seems worth it for thse 2 boni alone especially for production starved city's but one might still wonder where to fit it in a build order.

The price comparison is deffinatly one to take note of imho. Windmill comes at about 2/3rds of the price of a factory.

 

[reddishrecue]

From my usual settling habits on hills, i am guessing that i dont need water mills nor any windmills because hills dont let you build windmills and hills arent always next to a river. If the hills are next to a river then thats great then.

 

[the northman]

...
The price comparison is deffinatly one to take note of imho. Windmill comes at about 2/3rds of the price of a factory.

Exactly. Windmills are costly to build, and become available at an awkward time, when there are many other important things to build: wonders, cultural buildings, banks, etc. ST or Indust typically follow very shortly after Economics (I usually bulb ST, unless going for DomV), and you'll be wanting schools/factories then.

Windmills are difficult to fit into the build order, and due to their high investment and opportunity costs, the game would have to go on for a long time to offset these costs.

Also, I settle on hills much of the time

I can see building one for the engineer slot, however, if it's needed to produce a Great Engineer.

 

[lockandload]

What to hospitals have to do with food?

 

[Calz]

I generally never build walls or barracks.

I will build walls/castle if I'm near a mountain in one city bedause I can grab the wonder that gives you gold and culutre from owning a building

 

[krickets]

I don't like building resource specific buildings except stone works and circus. I'll build stables and mint when there are atleast 2 resources to get a bonus from. I think all coastal improvements are worth it with just 1 resource as long as I'm gonna build ships from the city. I also usually build barracks in cities I specifically designate as production military centers. Usually I have 2 of these in the empire that constantly pump out defensive units. i feel I can live without trade route buildings and amphitheaters too, and build them usually only when they have a great work to put into... its a pita to build those culture buildings when you don't need them even when going culture victory cus in the end an extra 1 culture which translates to 2 tourism at the best of times is pretty much not worth it without having a great work to fill in. Ditto on the people who don't build windmills as well.

 

[reddishrecue]

What to hospitals have to do with food?

Hospitals give 5 extra food in a city. If you want to know more about hospitals, you can click the help section or civilopedia. From there, you go to building section and youll see á list of buildings including hospitals.

 

[Acken]

The windmill's money cost is also a big problem. 1000gold when a factory or hydro plant is 1050...

And the 10% only to buildings is actually a big problem. The amount of buildings you're going to make post renaissance radically diminishes. Science will spend a long time building science, culture will make a lot of archeologists/wonders and domination will want units.

 

[Aheadatime]

I generally don't focus much on the cultural/tourism, espionage, or defensive buildings. I don't build caravansaries either. Reasons -

Culture is very strong, but a cultural CS ally or two will cover you unless you're going for a CV. Working guild slots helps alot as well, and all cultural buildings beyond amphitheaters are just way too costly

Espionage buildings are a waste. On higher difficulties, you'll be the one stealing the techs. If you're a clear tech leader, you'll win the game regardless. On lower difficulties, well.. who cares? Even if the AI steals a tech every 15 turns for the entirety of the game, they still don't have the production/growth/army scores to deal with you unless you're still learning how to play the game.

Defensive buildings are only useful if you're going for a very peaceful victory. Generally speaking, there will be war. EXP buildings (barracks, armories, etc) and units are much more valuable than defensive buildings. Walls are alright in a pinch, but the others are just too expensive and arrive at a time in the game when you should be building more important things. Basically, if it comes down to your cities either being captured without a wall or surviving for a few more turns with a wall, you've lost the game anyway.

Caravansaries are extremely contextual. I can only recall maybe 3 games that I've ever actually built them. I was super isolated, had good enough growth/production to spare a few caravans, and didn't have access to coast. But that is like a one-in-50-games scenario.

Growth, production, science, and gold buildings are all much more important. There are some cities in which I don't build gold buildings, but I generally at least get markets up in all cities.

Regarding stables, you should really get into the habit of valuing them. Even if you only have a single stable resource, consider the math. The game will probably last ~300 turns. They're generally built at around turn 50-100 (super contextual). After subtracting the 100 hammers that went into building them, you're still at 100-150 free hammers, which can equate to a free university. This is in a worst-case scenario btw, where you only have one stable resource nearby. Their value dramatically increases with each added stable resource. I also didn't factor in their mounted unit cost reduction.

 

[whyidie]

Probably the only building I have yet to skip is Library. No matter the circumstance, I eventually end up with Libraries in cities which come before National College. Best I can do with Libraries is delay them significantly.

All other building types I can/have skipped building on various playthroughs.

Most likely to skip would be counter espionage buildings and forges. Usually not enough iron or need for land units to justify building at that stage in the game.

 

[lockandload]

Hospitals give 5 extra food in a city. If you want to know more about hospitals, you can click the help section or civilopedia. From there, you go to building section and youll see á list of buildings including hospitals.

Yes, thanks for the formulaic answer. But I am left wondering why hospitals increase food to the city.